Wednesday Fiction Story Tellin'

Choosing Springsteen

She halted the pink banana seat bicycle just twenty feet from the garage and behind the evergreen where he could not see her. Her Mary Jane shoes that partially covered her dusty white socked feet were planted on the gravel drive helping her steady herself as she craned her neck to listen. The sun was just sliding across the sky into its noon position and she observed his Australian Shepards who were sprawled out and panting with fox-like grins where the cement of the garage met the gravel drive. She waited for the a breeze to carry the assuring sound of Saturday morning. All was still and quiet but she waited, trying not to panic and trying to avoid the growing hollowness of her tummy, reasoning that she could not hear the panting of the dog's breath so therefore she was not downwind. She held her breath.

Then there was a clink of steel on steel and hope began to fill in the hollowness. The corn stalks in the field beside her rustled with the slight change in the direction of a late summer breeze and there it was: Bruce Springsteen today. Picking up bravery and optimism, she peeked a little farther out from behind the evergreen and watched him from that safe distance in his ripped white t-shirt, shoulder and arm muscles bounding out and away from the body her mother bragged about on the phone to her girlfriends when she didn't realize her daughter was listening. He stood in the garage squating and standing with a bar of weights that could easily account for 200 pounds resting on his shoulders.

With each clink of the steel weights clanking lightly on the the cement or sliding into one another, she became more sure that today would not be like the days where she instead found him in the garage drinking. The sound of Springsteen meant that tonight they might all go out to the restaurant that had children's menus that doubled as animal face masks. Across the table he might smile at her, encouraging her to save room for a fudge sundae while gently rubbing the back of her mother's neck. They might return home in his truck laughing and the dogs would not have to choose who to rally around and protect after the sun had long set- the fearful small girl laying in the twin bed who her mother and he stupidly thought was asleep or her mother who always found the most dangerous places to suddenly attempt (and usually fail to) stand up for herself. Like the staircase. 

No, she decided, pushing the dreaded possibilities out of her brain. This afternoon he had chosen Springsteen. Springsteen was never followed by a bad night so she stood a little longer in the driveway, soaking in the gentle oooo-hooos of Bruce before the wind shifted again.